Character Panel - Leading Value in Menu shows incorrect value

Hi @Douglas_Waterfall , I keep getting hit with this issue. Any update on your end? Have you been able to repro?

Hi @Douglas_Waterfall thanks for the reply. I understand what you're alluding to and what you are alluding is having multiple text styles within a single Text Layer and this also holds true for Paragraph Alignment. However, my BR was on incorrect/ambiguous/wrong/uneable information displayed in the Leading Value/Drop Menu Box for a Text Layer with a SINGLE leading setting. This setting can be set while no text is selected or via Expression. 

It actually goes a lot deeper than cosmetics too because when I want to apply a non-linear relatinoship between Font Size and Leading Size, there is no way to know of the result. Even with a linear relationship between Font Size and Leading Size, it's still an issue because there is no way to read the actual Leading Size. 

I safely assume more users will hit this conundrum when more users start messing about with setting Leading via Expressions.

So, again thanks for taking a look but please look at the precise and, IMO, quite an oft-used issue. 

Ah, I see, that is confusing.

My initial thought was that it was a bug but I think the UI is trying to be super clever and so actually confusing.

• Make Text Layer with a few words of text.
• Select all, set Point Size to 10x, Leading 14x. Selection will show as 14x.
• Select one word of the Text Layer, set to Auto. Now if you cursor through the Text Layer it will show Auto, but the "px" indicating will go on and off based on whether you are at/on characters which truly have Auto on. This is the confusing bit I could imagine. If you select all then the UI will show mixed as a dash - which is correct.
• Now go select all the text which had Leading 14x set and change it to 30px. Now the UI will show 30px when it should, and Auto when it should.

The logic I guess is to show the effective Leading and with 14x perhaps Auto is the value which matters. But by changing it to 30x that is larger than what Auto would calculate and so it shows correctly.

The former behavior (with 14x) is not helpful when you are trying to see what value you had set - now all you see is Auto (px) which is misleading.

Not sure we would consider changing this, more of a questionble design decision rather than a bug.

Thanks for the report @Roland Kahlenberg 

Douglas Waterfall

After Effects Engineering

@Douglas_Waterfall  Thanks for the reply. 

Here's the rundown - 

1 - When selecting a Text Layer in the Timeline/Comp, the Character Panel's Text Style Values update to show values in context to the selected Text Layer. 

2 - This is true for all Text Style Values except Leading which reverts to displaying Auto. 

Steps to Reproduce - 

1- Create new Text Layer A - mess about with the settings, especially Leading; setting it to a value other than Auto.

2 - Create  new Text Layer B - mess about with the settings, set Leading to Auto.

3 - Select Text Layer A - you can/should see its Leading display is Auto and not the value you set in Step 1.


Are you able to repro this?


TIA
 

@Roland Kahlenberg 

Show me what you are trying to describe.

The handling of Auto Leading/Kerning is confusing as the UI can try to show what the calculated leading (or kerning) is when that actual value is not assigned. Kerning is very vulnerable to this.

My first easy assumption, even though you have a lot of experience and usually know what you are talking about, is that it is more likely this is the confusing behavior which you are seeing.

Douglas Waterfall

After Effects Engineering